Philippine to ban open-pit mining - Gloria Arroyo

Mining News - Published on Mon, 24 Sep 2018

The Philippine Star reported that the House of Representatives will approve a bill banning open-pit mining, which has been blamed for flooding and landslides that have resulted in innumerable deaths. Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in the course of a Ways and Means Committee hearing on proposed higher taxes and royalties from the mining industry, said “We will have a bill expressly prohibiting open-pit mining. That is a priority of President Duterte. Now, since you’re all here, since it is not Dominguez’s priority but it is the President’s priority as he said in the State of the Nation Address last July 23, therefore, we will come up with a mining bill.”

She said she gave Dominguez time to submit his own proposals to be incorporated in the House version of the new mining legislation. She said that “I will ask the industry, talk to the DOF, otherwise we make our own.’

Dominguez heads the administration’s mining industry coordinating council, which has reversed most of the decisions of former DENR secretary Gina Lopez closing mining companies found engaged in destructive practices and violating their mineral-sharing agreements with the government.